Table of Contents

List of Illustrations
Introduction
1 Vicissitudes and Possibilities of Critical Theory Today
 Defining Critical Theory
 Contemporary Modernity
 Renewing Critique
2 Global Modernity: Levels of Analysis and Conceptual Strategies
 Introduction
 Levels of Analysis
  Descriptions
  Middle-range Analytical Concepts
  General Analytical Concepts
 A Trend-concept: Secularization
 Conclusion
3 Existential Social Questions, Developmental Trends and Modernity
 The Problem 
 Existential Social Questions 
 Existential Questions, Developmental Trends and Modernizing Moves 
 Final Words 
4 History, Sociology and Modernity 
 Introduction 
 Historical Sociology and Sociological Theory 
 Theory and Mechanisms 
 Conclusion 
5 Realism, Trend-concepts and the Modern State 
 Introduction 
 Beyond Empiricism (and Critical Realism) 
 The Modern State and Modern Society 
 Collective Subjectivity, Mechanisms, Modernization 
 Final Words 
6 Family, Modernization and Sociological Theory 
 Two Intertwined Themes 
 Globalization and Modernization 
 The Family, the “dimensions” of Social Life and the “existential questions” 
 Conclusion 
7 The Basic Forms of Social Interaction 
 Introduction 
 Principles of Organization, Mechanisms of Coordination 
 Principles of Antagonism, Mechanisms of Opposition 
 Coordination, Antagonism 
 Interactive Inclinations 
 Bases of Justification 
 Conclusion 
8 The Imaginary and Politics in Modernity: The Trajectory of Peronism 
 Introduction 
 Theoretical Background 
 Historical Peronism 
 The Argentina of Kirchner and Fernández de Kirchner 
 The Imaginary and Politics in Modernity 
9 Critical Social Theory and Developmental Trends, Emancipation and Late Communism 
 Introduction 
 Capitalism, Accumulation and Communism 
 Contemporary Alternatives 
 Tasks of Critical Theory – or Late Twentieth Century Communism 
References
Index

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About the Author

Jose Maurcio Domingues, PhD in sociology (LSE), is professor at the Institute of Social and Political Studies (IESP-UERJ, State University of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil), and author of several books on the subject of Sociology:Global Modernity, Development, and Global Civilization(Routledge, 2012),Latin America and Contemporary Modernity(Routledge, 2018),Modernity Reconstructed(University of Wales Press, 2006),Social Creativity, Collective Subjectivity and Contemporary Modernity(Macmillan/Saint Martin's Press, 2000) andSociological Theory and Collective Subjectivity(MacMillan/Saint Martin's Press, 1995).